I knew a guy who took a job offer in England. He was going to be there for three years. He swore that he would leave understanding cricket. When he came back, he said he still had no idea what the hell was going on, and that's after watching matches, talking to fans, and watching sports shows.

It is probably the most lingo-dense sport out there. Hell, I downloaded Cricket Revolution on Steam to see if I could "get it." I know some of the basics, but I'll be damned if I understand half of what that link tells me.

jonathan_L:Been watching for this thread all morning. Let's go boys! Get some runs!

What do we reckon would be the minimum target for England before Oz' next innings? Current lead is 134, I'd love to see 250+.

I think a lead of 230 or so would be defendable. 250+ would be an excellent result from here. It depends completely on Bell and Prior staying together though, as there's not much batting talent after them.

whizbangthedirtfarmer:I knew a guy who took a job offer in England. He was going to be there for three years. He swore that he would leave understanding cricket. When he came back, he said he still had no idea what the hell was going on, and that's after watching matches, talking to fans, and watching sports shows.

It is probably the most lingo-dense sport out there. Hell, I downloaded Cricket Revolution on Steam to see if I could "get it." I know some of the basics, but I'll be damned if I understand half of what that link tells me.

I understand the basics as well, especially in terms of the shorter versions of the sport. But I don't understand the strategy or decision making for the multi-day version like this.

Yep, and the closer to a 1 to 1 ratio the better, and better than that ie more runs than balls faced is even better, though in test cricket it's rare. In ODI and Twenty20 where the limits on overs causes more aggressive batting you routinely see players with more runs than balls faced. In ODI the record for fewest balls faced for hitting a century, 100 runs, is 37. In test cricket the record for fastest century is 56 balls. And four players have scored fifty in less than 20 balls in ODI, hasn't happened in test cricket. Another measure of aggressive batting is the number of runs in an over, the test record is 28, the ODI record is 36, the maximum possible facing six balls. And five players have had 30 runs in an over in ODI.

Yep, and the closer to a 1 to 1 ratio the better, and better than that ie more runs than balls faced is even better, though in test cricket it's rare. In ODI and Twenty20 where the limits on overs causes more aggressive batting you routinely see players with more runs than balls faced. In ODI the record for fewest balls faced for hitting a century, 100 runs, is 37. In test cricket the record for fastest century is 56 balls. And four players have scored fifty in less than 20 balls in ODI, hasn't happened in test cricket. Another measure of aggressive batting is the number of runs in an over, the test record is 28, the ODI record is 36, the maximum possible facing six balls. And five players have had 30 runs in an over in ODI.

You'll see statistics like "Eng RR" = average number of runs per over by England. A good way to get a feel for how aggressive the batters are being.

One thing that is constant across all forms of cricket is that batsmen get aggressive whenever there is a no ball, which most simply put is an illegally bowled ball. Reason is on a no ball the numbers of ways to go out is reduced, so it becomes a free chance to really take a good hard swing. That is assuming the no ball is called early enough that the batter can react to the call. Also since a no ball results in one run being award to the batting team, it doesn't matter if the ball gets batted right to someone, not a waste of a swing.

FrancoFile:I wish I understood placing of the fielders better. Other than "put in slips and try to get a catch, and we don't care if the other team gets run", I don't get fielding strategy at all.

You're trying to anticipate how the batsmen will hit or mis-hit the different bowling. When the ball is new and the bowling is fast, the batsman is very likely to deflect the ball back and to his off-side (where his bat is); so the slips and gullies are all back there to catch it - they're pretty far back because it's moving fast. When the bowling is slow and spinning the fielders huddle in around the batsman in case he fends it just into the air and forward - it won't go far unless he gets a really good hit, in which case they just let it go.

As the game goes on and a batsman settles in the strategy might have to change; you'll see the fielders start to spread out as they become less confident of getting the guy out and more concerned with stopping the ball reaching the boundary - and a more confident or aggressive batsman might hit big shots into the outfield that might be caught there.

There's a lot of analysis of each batsman and how he plays different bowling, his favourite shots are and where he tends to get out. Kevin Pieterson has a famous problem with left-arm spinners, so Ashton Agar was picked partly to psyche him out. Some of Agar's batting success yesterday reflects that England had never seen him bat before.

As for how aggressive ODI batting can get, in the 2006 Australia scored 434 runs to open the match against South Africa. South Africa responded by hitting for 438 runs. The whole match was just insane, with records set all over the place and performances that if not record breaking were certainly jaw dropping.

It's all starting to settle down a bit now. England's run rate is pretty dire, but they've got two whole days left, so no reason to hurry. They should be pretty pleased with how things have gone so far today.

/Of course, the last time I posted, Aus took a wicket about 30 seconds later, so that could all change

ThunderChild:It's all starting to settle down a bit now. England's run rate is pretty dire, but they've got two whole days left, so no reason to hurry. They should be pretty pleased with how things have gone so far today.

/Of course, the last time I posted, Aus took a wicket about 30 seconds later, so that could all change

Yeah, this partnership need to bat out the day, get at least 300 if not 320 for this innings.

Then tomorrow they push on and get an overall lead of 350 (which would be 415 for this innings) and bat until at least lunch, and hopefully tea. I think they'd be confident they could bowl Australia out in the last day or day-and-a-half.You can bowl 80-90 overs in a day during a Test match; Australia's first innings only lasted 65 overs.

I follow a fair bit of ODI on cricinfo, so I think I mostly understand the game at a reasonable level for an American.

But for Test matches, what does the "minimum overs remaining" indicate (up in the Run Rate section)? It's Test, so that can't mean "if we don't get this far we go to Duckworth-Lewis." It doesn't seem to mean "we're playing at least this many more today", because it was still a positive number at Stumps yesterday. So what does that number mean?

TheEndIsNigh:I follow a fair bit of ODI on cricinfo, so I think I mostly understand the game at a reasonable level for an American.

But for Test matches, what does the "minimum overs remaining" indicate (up in the Run Rate section)? It's Test, so that can't mean "if we don't get this far we go to Duckworth-Lewis." It doesn't seem to mean "we're playing at least this many more today", because it was still a positive number at Stumps yesterday. So what does that number mean?

In theory, 90 overs should be bowled each day in a test match. Two overs are subtracted each time an innings ends (so that the teams can switch from batting to bowling and vice versa).

It was still positive yesterday because the over rate in this test match has been abysmal. Even with an extra half hour they still couldn't get through the 88 overs.

TheEndIsNigh:I follow a fair bit of ODI on cricinfo, so I think I mostly understand the game at a reasonable level for an American.

But for Test matches, what does the "minimum overs remaining" indicate (up in the Run Rate section)? It's Test, so that can't mean "if we don't get this far we go to Duckworth-Lewis." It doesn't seem to mean "we're playing at least this many more today", because it was still a positive number at Stumps yesterday. So what does that number mean?

Well, it's the number they are "supposed" to bowl for the rest of the day.But they have these bizarre restrictions about "you can't play past 6:35 at this stadium", etc. I think the TV contracts play into it too.

They actually fine the team captains in some matches if they don't bowl enough overs during the day. In the ODI series in the West Indies that was just completed, one of the team captains got a 1-game ban because his team was too slow bowling their overs. It usually happens because they have a predominance of 'fast' bowlers, who take those looooong run-ups before bowling. Those guys remind me of the baseball pitchers who check each baserunner 6 times before they finally toss it at the batter.

There is no duckworth-lewis in multi-day cricket (either domestic or Test), as you surmised.

Check out some of the domestic 4-day games (English County Cricket) on Cricinfo - or listen to the BBC radio feeds. I enjoy listening to Dave Callahan call the Yorkshire matches; he's got a nice, sonorous, deliberate tone of voice. County Cricket is to Test cricket as MLS is to the World Cup, or NHL is to Olympic hockey.

another noob question. what happens if australia is still trailing and isn't out at the end of day 5? draw?is there some point where england would want to lay down to ensure that there is enough time to get australia out completely?

johnny queso:another noob question. what happens if australia is still trailing and isn't out at the end of day 5? draw?is there some point where england would want to lay down to ensure that there is enough time to get australia out completely?

Yes, that would be a draw. With two days left, that's not a likely outcome. If England can bat for half of the day tomorrow though, they will want to declare their second innings over and try to get Australia out to win the match.